


in defence of an imperfect thing

by jazzfic



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Crew as Family, F/M, Gen, Shovel Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27322750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: In which Raffi has the talk with Agnes. No, not that one. Well, almost.
Relationships: Agnes Jurati & Raffi Musiker, Agnes Jurati/Cristóbal Rios
Comments: 11
Kudos: 22





	in defence of an imperfect thing

**Author's Note:**

> From a question posed by Regionalpancake: _Has anyone written a really-protective-Raffi giving Agnes ‘The Shovel Talk’ about Cris?_ I didn’t know (actually I had to look up what that meant because even if I am a fandom old, I also live mostly quietly under a rock) but here's something, I hope, of the like.

Emmet is sleeping. She watches him as he sits there, the sharp angle of his shoulders, long hair caught in a tangle against the headrest. Those broad hands, covered in lines of ink, grip the sides of the chair. Sometimes they contract, a flicker of movement, only to relax again. But his brows remain creased. She wonders what he’s seeing, what he’s thinking, locked away in there.

Cris, sometimes, has that same expression. It’s as if a thought has dipped inside and gotten snagged at a bad place, and he’s trying very hard to keep it held down. Like he doesn’t want to be seen. Agnes looks away, feeling ever so slightly that she’s blurring lines she shouldn’t.

“Doc.”

It’s Raffi, appearing many layered from the shadows. She has a steaming mug of something in hand, and she nods at Agnes and sits down to bring up her ops controls before glancing over to the hologram. “Hey, tattoo, you’re relieved.” 

There’s no movement or sound from the tactical station aside from a quiet snore. Agnes sees Raffi take in a breath to repeat herself at volume, and interrupts with, “He’s okay. Let him sleep.”

Raffi spears Agnes with a look that says otherwise, but she shrugs. “Sure, whatever.” Under her breath she murmurs, “Won’t hurt to have a witness...”

Agnes isn’t entirely sure what she means by that but decides not to prod. She goes back to her work for exactly four seconds when she realises Raffi’s not turned away, and is instead considering Agnes with an expression that makes her feel like she’s got a small, shining light hot at the back of her head. Raffi puts the mug down and keys in a sequence into the controls before turning the chair fully to face her.

She’s shifting a little, too, full of something, nerves, decisions. Cool dread pings at Agnes’s stomach and she mirrors Raffi, turning her holo-interface to one side. “Um, okay, have I done something wrong?” she asks. Well, might as well plunge into this first. Death only comes to those who hesitate, said no-one, ever. 

Raffi grunts. “Mm. I sure hope not.” 

The dread splits into icicles, each wielding an image: Bruce’s body in cold storage, Bruce’s body on the table, Bruce’s body, gone. Agnes in her blue coat, Raffi spitting her name at Picard like it’s a bad taste she wants to get rid of...

“Okay! I’m just gonna jump in and say it.” Raffi winds her hands together. “I want to talk about Cris.”

The floor, having opened up just a crack, snaps shut again. Agnes blinks. “I – what?”

“Cris.”

“Cris?”

“Oh my god, woman. Captain Romeo to you!”

“Yes, I know of whom you speak!” Agnes snaps. She rescues her voice from the verbal stratosphere. “Um, sorry.”

Emmet mumbles something in his sleep. He crosses his arms, shifts his position, and falls still again. Raffi glances over and it’s enough of a distraction for Agnes to take several deeps breaths and to paste a neutral expression on her face. She realises now, with only a slight rattle of horror, where this is going. Which is... okay. She was maybe expecting it. (No, she wasn’t. Denial is a warm and lovely home.) She’s going to be calm and collected and nod and not die a little inside. (She is. No, she really _is_.) 

She’s always been a little bit scared of Raffi. But then, isn’t everyone?

She thinks of Picard, smiling into his tea as Raffi snarks at him across the table. Of Elnor, questions tumbling without end, bright and free and unencumbered with hesitation. She thinks of Soji bravely demanding answers, refusing to paint conspiracy with the judgement Raffi has been living with for so long. 

She sees Cris biting onto a cigar stub, eyes laughing openly at his friend; she sees Seven’s trusting, even gaze.

She thinks probably, really, the answer is no.

She looks at Raffi now. And when Raffi asks, her voice lowered, sharp but not unkind, “Can I go on?” Agnes nods.

Raffi takes her mug and tips her head back, draining it. She winces slightly. “Okay... okay. I said I was gonna do this, so I’m doing this.” She holds a finger up, not looking at Agnes. “I know I’m just repeating myself in the preamble here but you gotta realise, I care about this guy. So goddamn much. And I won’t lie, it’s still more than you. But we’re early in this thing, whatever this is we’re all doing here, and you and me, we’re getting there, okay? So. Let me say my piece.”

There’s a long silence. 

“He doesn’t hand it over easy,” she says. “It’s not my place to explain the why of that. That’s for him to do, for you to ask. I want you to know, though, the... I don’t know. I want to say the battle that’s lurking here--” she presses a hand to her chest, stares Agnes in the eye, “right _here_ – it’s gonna burst out, really ugly and really bloody and really loud, if you go hiding a great thing again. Lie again. Really fucking ruin it all, like you said, once.” Her words are a sharp shock and Raffi’s eyes are shining. “Do you get me? Do you know what I mean?”

Agnes, heart thudding, says nothing. 

“Of course you do. You’re in it as deep as he is, and here’s the kicker. I feel something like real honest joy when I see the way he looks at you. I really do. It’s a small, perfect thing, with two beautifully imperfect people. Please, for the sake of everything even slightly okay in this fucked up world, just... please know that.”

“There’s a pedestal,” says Agnes, trying very hard not to cry herself. “You’ve put it up there and it’s getting pretty high. And I’m not great with heights.” 

“Yeah, and it doesn’t exist either, honey,” says Raffi, with a quick smile. She turns away, takes a breath and tugs the shawl around her shoulders. “You wonder if anything really does when you love someone. I think you know that. You just balance best you can, including all the times you fall. Just as I told Cris.” 

Agnes sits up. She feels like something is whipping through her head. 

“Wait, you – you had this talk with Cris, about me? You, Raffi Musiker, defended _my_ honour?”

Raffi throws her hands in the air. “Well, shit, someone’s got to. Besides, he’s pretty cute when he blushes.” 

Oh, yes. It’s definitely there. Something whipping through and out and she’s open mouthed and staring after it and her question is fading into the noise. Then the words catch up with her and a fierce heat warms her face. Eyes cast down she feels as much as sees Raffi’s eyes rolling and the reluctant chuckle that accompanies this.

“Exactly,” mutters Raffi, with a sigh. “Just like that. Ugh, see what I mean? Perfect.”

Agnes risks looking up. “Well, what did he say?” 

At this Raffi’s demeanour leaps back into comfortable venom. “No, absolutely not. Betray my darling, baby brother? No way. You go turn those big eyes onto someone else. Anyway, it turns out JL got in there before me.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Raffi snorts. “Oh, yeah. You think this conversation was awkward? Imagine being lectured at sternly but genteelly on the virtues of intimacy by the great Jean-Luc Picard, he who speaketh never of such things.”

“Poor Cris.”

“Yeah. So don’t feel too bad. You both got a good grilling.” A noise behind them has Raffi looking up and clearing her throat. She picks up her mug, waves it, and in a louder voice adds, “And here’s my cue to disappear for more of this fine brew. Tag team, kids, play nice.” 

Cris, the source of the approaching footsteps, frowns at Raffi as she slips past in the direction of the stairs. He stops by Agnes’s station.

“Did I miss something?”

There’s companionable silences. There’s easy conversations. And then there’s the jugular-eating whiplash of emotional upheaval that the last ten minutes has presented for her brain to store in perpetual joy from this day onward. Agnes knows which one she wants right now and it involves as little words as possible. 

She holds a hand up. He takes it and she tugs him down gently until he’s kneeling by her side. She transfers her hands his face and closes her eyes. He’s been burrowed with Ian down in hauls of the ship and he both looks and smells like it. She can feel him smiling, though, warmth beneath her skin. “Hey,” she asks, very seriously. “Do you think Elnor would mind if I borrowed his sword?”

“His... why?”

“To keep under my pillow at night.”

Agnes opens her eyes and Cris rocks back on his heels, confusion tipping his head to one side. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. She leans across the small chasm to kiss him quickly, then stands upright. 

He’s still kneeling at her feet. Dark eyes follow her but he doesn’t ask again. She’s pretty sure he knows anyway. 

A snore floats across the bridge. “He’s been asleep the whole time, hasn’t he?” asks Cris, with a sigh. He grips the armrest of Agnes’s chair and stands up as well. Together they consider the ETH in very serious and silent deliberation. 

Agnes shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s kind of comforting. He’d wake if anything happened, though, right?”

Cris grunts something in the affirmative. He crosses his arms and leans very slightly against her.

“Then leave him?” She feels like this is suddenly, weirdly important. That she wants to smooth the tension that jumps into the air whenever Cris’s eyes slip darkly to his holograms. There’s a lot she wants to do but she can’t split herself into twos, or threes, or five. She wants to follow Raffi to the mess and ply her with milkshakes, to make deep and naughty suggestions about Seven until she laughs. She’s good at that. She wants to push Cris into a hot shower and untangle the grease from his hair and thank him for letting her past the guards, his one old friend, even if he doesn’t know why and even if she never explains it. 

There’s a ring on the stairs, bootsteps quiet, up and up they come. Raffi’s returning with fresh coffee. 

“Okay,” says Cris, still looking reluctantly at Emmet, “but only because you asked.” 

Agnes says nothing, only watches Raffi. And when she sees the smile appear, she takes it.


End file.
